


Just Casual

by Merfilly



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-15
Updated: 2007-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dinah contemplates how she got here</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Casual

Post-fight, survival rush of adrenaline…whatever it had been, that first encounter was casual, despite its intensity. Never to be repeated.

Until Geneva, shadowing a delegate to a conference to keep them alive, while he was there to take down an assassin seeking to foul that mission up. Seemed some big business had paid him to protect the delegate because the delegate was supporting their goals. After the conference concluded, there had been enough adrenaline spent to justify a hotel room and a much better bed than the pilot's station on a leaky boat.

The next time? She began to suspect he had more interest in her than might be healthy, but she didn't tell him know in the darkened room, didn't stop him from pushing her limits. She could feel it building, that coiling rope of emotion threatening to take the casual and make it a noose of commitment.

It took the sixth time, when she found herself falling asleep in his arms to thoroughly scare her away. Doctor Midnite was flirting, and she managed to get her point across to the merc without making an enemy of him. It was, after all, just a casual affair between a rogue and a hero. Happened all the time. Just look at Bruce and Selina.

Doctor Midnite, unfortunately, was too kind a man to erase the thrill and smoke and danger from her craving. But then Oliver Queen made a play for her, and amid a battle against the Riddler, she left her memories behind and plunged back into her lover of the past.

If they could just make it work, she was sure the comfort, the thrill, all of it would be just right. Ollie and Dinah, Canary and Arrow, a match made in fairy tales. Except for the part where Prince Charming couldn't be faithful.

She had fingered a number out of her costume, one given to her for 'just in case, sister'. She had never used it, but now? She couldn't tell this to Roy, could not ruin his relationship with Oliver. But she needed someone, wanted to be told it was okay, that she wasn't damaged goods.

Surprisingly, despite the fact she didn't sound at all like the strong, vibrant woman he ran into, he had told her where he was, invited her to his side. An entire weekend in his arms, gaining the promise from him for Ollie's death if the archer ever made her cry again, being soothed, made love to…she walked away feeling like a complete woman again. That he had brought her around, worked her through it all so that he could have the pleasure of an able running partner and lover again did cross her mind, but it didn't matter. It was still casual, right?

Then there was Carnivale, in Rio, there by his invitation. A casual dalliance in a city atmosphere where both could go unnoticed by teeming masses. A fight, out of armor and costume in a back alleyway, against drug pushers and gang members. The hotel afterwards. His hand holding her wrists over her head. Her legs around his waist, her teeth in his shoulder. The near deafening silence surrounding them both as their skin slowly cooled in the aftermath of a soul-shattering surrender to his every desire.

She noted then, as he settled her in the curve of his body, protecting her with his greater bulk as he had before in resting after sex, that his left ring finger was bare, the skin still marked where sun had not kissed that spot in over twenty five years.

Her protests of 'casual' died then and there, as she saw he had already left it behind.


End file.
